First the gunshots pierced the neighborhood. Women’s screams followed. Then sirens.

Now, one man – a new father – is dead following a brazen daytime shooting on the West Side that rattled the neighborhood and called a lineup of police to the main drag. It was the city's fourth murder in three weeks and the sixth since Jan. 1, equalling the total for 2012 less than five months into the year.

The victim has been identified as Charles Evans, 45, of Brockton, according to Bridget Norton-Middleton, Ply mouth County assistant district attorney.

Evans sustained gunshot wounds to the chest. He was tak en to Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital and pronounced dead, said Middleton.

There had no been arrests as of Wednesday morning.

The shooting is still under investigation by the State Police assigned to the Plymouth Coun ty district attorney’s office and the Brockton Police.

The 911 calls flooded in just past 4 p.m. for multiple gunshots in the area of 227 Belmont St., police said.

Boom. Boom.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

That’s the sound Corinna Hilton heard as she and her boyfriend enjoyed a beer on their back porch, as the violent echoes of gunshots rang out.

Just steps from the front door of their Belmont Street home lay a man dying from gunshot wounds.

As her boyfriend ran to him and began compressions on the man’s chest, Hilton called 911, then ran to get towels “to sop up the blood,” said Hilton, 39, who said crime in the neighborhood seems to be picking up.

Brockton emergency officials arrived.

Hilton, meanwhile, stood next to the victim’s girlfriend, as both watched paramedics try to save the man’s life.

“We just had a new baby,” the girlfriend told her.

“At this point it’s under investigation and we’re not going to release any information,” said spokeswoman Bridget Norton Middleton, who said the shooting is being investigated by Brockton police and state police detectives assigned to the district attorney’s office.

No one was arrested in connection with the crime as of Tuesday night, said Middleton. An autopsy is scheduled for today to determine the cause and manner of death.

The six murders are the most before July 1 since at least 2009.

As police strung up yellow tape Tuesday afternoon, neighbors and passers-by lined the busy street to watch the scene unfold. It left many unsettled.

“You would have thought it was like a series of fireworks going off,” said 25-year-old Liz Delgado, a Brett Street neighbor. “You should’ve heard everybody screaming.”

Delgado, who lives with her sister adjacent to the home where the victim was killed, said the two keep to themselves, “for reasons like this.”

Page 2 of 2 - “Because you become friends with somebody, no bullet has a name,” added her sister, 31-year-old Stephanie Hoch.

“You really get scared when it comes down to this happening in the daytime,” said Danny May, a Belmont Street neighbor who stood opposite the street outside George’s Cafe.

“That’s what sad,” added May, 58. “They don’t even care.”

Don Henriques, who grew up a street over on Wall Street, described the area as “a relatively quiet neighborhood.”

“Everybody knows everybody. Everybody watches out for everybody. But it’s getting to be different people,” said Henriques, 53, who had walked by just two minutes before the shooting, and then again minutes afterward, past the body that lay face up on the pavement outside the back porch of 227 Belmont St.

Manuel Rocha, 59, shook his head at what had just happened around the corner from where he lives. A friend had called to tell him about it.

“I said ‘no, no, it couldn’t be,’” said Rocha, who walked down to see for himself.

“Something has to be done,” he added. “It’s unreal. This is not Brockton.”

About six weeks ago, Mindy Padilla, who has owned the adjacent dress store called Princesses, Angels, and Divas for the past decade, found gunshots into her store.

The owner of the store’s building, Stephen Ungewitter, called the violence “ridiculous” and said he will likely lose a tenant who was about to move in.

Others threatened to move out.

“Summer hasn’t even started,” said Delgado, a neighbor. “And this is the summer I have to look forward to?”

“Look at the corners,” she added. “Everybody’s out. But where is everybody trying to prevent things like this?”